Island Moving Company takes a big step to build new Newport dance center. What's next?

NEWPORT — The Newport-based contemporary ballet company Island Moving Company announced it has finalized purchase of the property at 435 Broadway in downtown Newport, the next major step it needs to build its new Center for Arts, Dance & Education.

“While we’re grateful for the space we currently rent, it is limited in terms of our ability to grow our programs and to serve our community,” Executive Director Peter Bramante said. “Newport has never had an appropriate performing arts space, so our productions have always had to be more unique in a sense that they’re either site-specific or based on a lot of outdoor work or, when we do look to create an opportunity for a production, we almost have to create the theater to present the work in.”

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Since the property, which was formerly owned by the city of Newport, had more land than ICM needed for its new facility, the parcel will be split into two new parcels with the other half being used to house four new single-family homes.

The building on the property served as the public George Triplett Elementary School from 1989 to 1998, and later again from 2011 to 2013 as a temporary schoolhouse for the displaced Sullivan School students awaiting Pell Elementary’s construction.

In a few years, the old school will be replaced by an 8,000 sq. ft. building to serve as the ballet company’s main headquarters, performance space, studio space and house its costume & production departments and its pre-professional school, the Newport Academy of Ballet.

“The need for a permanent home that provided both the flexibility of a professionally outfitted performance space that we could rely on regularly as well as being able to actually accommodate all of our company dancers and our school and our administration has been a long time need,” Bramante said.

ICM has been in the market for a permanent facility since 2012 and began the purchasing process for the Broadway property in 2018, according to the company’s press release. However, when predevelopment design and site engineering was completed in 2020, progress halted on the city’s review and approval process for the project as municipal meetings shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The project scored approval from the city’s Planning and Zoning Boards in 2021 and was able to finally close on the property on Dec. 1, 2022. The $900,000 ICM spent to purchase the facility is just a fraction of the $8.2 million needed to complete the facility. With $2.2 million already raised, the next step in the project will be fundraising for the rest of the money.

“The remainder of the campaign for this next phase will be a combination of individual donors and foundations and grants and so on and so forth so there will be many sources we will be looking to raise the funds from,” Bramante said.

While the project is still a few years out from being fully completed, ICM hopes to be able to occupy the space by 2025 or early 2026 at the latest. The building itself will take about 14 months to complete.

The company also plans to construct a community green space, or pocket park, in the front of the building and allow members of the community to use spaces within the building for private instruction or even as a performance space. Bramante said this space is as much a way to increase their footprint and storage capacity as it is a way to increase their contribution to the community.

“We really see it as a place that will hum with activity, with creativity, with arts, dance and education as the primary focus,” Bramante said. “We really see it as a kind of cultural beacon for the city that doesn’t exist, and I know that sounds very aspirational and lofty, but that really is the greatest benefit besides the practical matters, that it will provide Newport and all of Aquidneck Island really with a hub for the arts and that’s the big vision part that we’re really excited about.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Island Moving Company finalizes Newport school purchase